Ridgway faces routine at Walla Walla

SEATTLE — Green River killer Gary Ridgway, sentenced to 48 life terms after admitting he strangled 48 young women, will likely spend the rest of his life behind the cinder-block walls of the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

That’s where most "lifers" at least begin their sentences after mental and physical evaluations at the state prison in Shelton. It’s where all Washington’s death-row inmates live.

"Most prisoners think of Walla Walla as hard time," penitentiary spokeswoman Lori Scamahorn said of the 2,200 men at the prison.

Those serving "life without" the possibility of release serve time without hope of freedom. They face a life of noise, routine, threats of violence and lack of comfort and friendship.

"The main problem with a ‘life without’ sentence is you know you’re never going to be able to come into any intimate contact with anyone you care about," said David Lewis Rice, 45, who is serving a life sentence for killing Seattle attorney Charles Goldmark, his wife Annie and their two little boys on Christmas Eve 1985.

"Essentially, you’re already dead. It’s just when they get around to burial," said Rice, who erroneously believed his victims to be Jewish communists.

"It’s your choice how you do your time here," said Mitchell Rupe, who killed tellers Twila Capron and Candace Hemmig while robbing an Olympia bank in 1981.

"Some people take longer to learn that. Lots of knuckleheads," said the 49-year-old Rupe, interviewed last week by The News Tribune of Tacoma. "But you either deal with life on a level you accept here, or you’re just going to burn yourself out."

Rupe said he finds qualified happiness in good visits, good mail and rare good meals, like biscuits and gravy on Saturday mornings.

"I try not to waste any day," Rupe said.

But boredom is part of the deal at what he calls "Wally World."

"Shower, slop, break, slop, work, slop, work, TV, bed," he said. "Get up and do it again."

Some inmates turn bitter, he said. Some "medicate" themselves. Some become spiritual. Some delve into law books. And some distract themselves with prison jobs and hobbies.

That option won’t be available to Ridgway, at least not at first.

"Gary Ridgway is not going to be in the inmate activity center," Scamahorn said. "Gary Ridgway is not going to be at the hobby shop. Gary Ridgway is going to be in the Intensive Management Unit."